Security and Privacy Statement

The OXfordshire Surname Interest List (OXSIL) is currently provided by three volunteers. It is not controlled by any organisation, but has excellent working relations with the Oxfordshire Family History Society (OFHS).

If you are an OXSIL user – i.e. if you have submitted surnames for inclusion in the OXSIL database – we hold information about you in our database and use it to forward messages that we receive for you via our website.

The information we hold on you is normally limited to: –

the information that can be seen on the user’s public OXSIL profile. You can check yours at any time by searching on your email address on our home page (www.oxsil.org.uk). Don’t forget to try also any former email addresses you may have signed up with. You can ask us to change or remove your profile at any time by writing to query@oxsil.org.uk.

an email address. This is held in two databases. One is used to forward messages and to share information with you. The other – unless you have requested us not to – we use to send you a monthly email. If you have told us that you are a member of the Oxfordshire Family History Society, we will share your email address with OFHS as part of our checking procedure.

For a small proportion of users (about 0.1%) we hold further information. In most cases this falls under one of three headings a) alternative contacts – this could be a telephone number, a second email address or, perhaps, a street address; b) a name to use when writing to you (if it is different from the public one); or c) information about any unsuccessful attempt we have made to contact you. We don’t collect any sensitive personal information (for example racial, ethnic origin or political allegiance) about OXSIL users. If you would like to know what information we hold on you that is not on your profile, just write to us at query@oxsil.org.uk. Please check your profile first and please quote your OXSIL number (which you will see on the profile) when writing. If you don’t quote your OXSIL number, we will only reply if we do in fact hold additional information about you.

With the exceptions mentioned above, we do not share your email address or any other information not visible on your profile with anyone. When someone sends you a message through OXSIL, they only learn your email address when you send them a message.

People who register on OXSIL and those who send a query through OXSIL may receive an email from one of the OXSIL team as we can sometimes aid them with their research.

We do not hold in our databases any information about people who send OXSIL users a message through our system. We send their message and email on to the OXSIL user they wish to contact. In addition, they should be aware that we do not routinely delete email traffic.